Laying in a small hospital bed only some 30 miles or so from her own bed and home, my godmother is seemingly caught in a moment where the wind will either blow her back to us and make light of our fears and anxieties or send her sailing into the arms of her parents and younger sister, my mother, and leave us behind to grieve. Despite the fact that I know she has endured a life beset by all the ills Lupus can (and did) send her way, this moment is one I am utterly unprepared for.

I have no words that can say the things my heart wants to say.

My godmother, Gertrude Bourque Jones, is an amazing woman. I couldn't phrase it any better than that if my life depended on it.

Her voice is this wonderful blend of my own mother's voice and the soothing sounds of my grandmother Ethel's voice. Whenever she speaks to you, whether in person or over the phone, you could literally feel her love wrap around your ears and settle itself across your shoulders like one of her arms. Now, when you take that voice and add in the sound of her laughter?

Nothing you hear could ever be sweeter.

Closing my eyes now I can see her there in the corner of my mind, watching us all play in her backyard and laughing at how silly we were, especially me, my cousin Timothy and Christopher, her only son.

God, I loved those afternoons.

To this day I consider Tim and Chris to be my brothers, perhaps a little more so with Christopher as he's my double first cousin.

My mother, Elaine, married my father, Alfred, while her sister, Gertrude, married Alfred's brother, Howard. I think, in a weird country backroad kind of way, that makes Christopher and I some sort of bayou cloning experiment.

Throughout my life I would always be told that we were closer than brothers, and I believed it then and I believe it now. I love Christopher despite the fact that I rarely if ever get an opportunity to see him.

Well, I see him every time I dream of myself as a child, I suppose.

I see him, his father and his mother. I see their house in Louisiana and I see us walking the street in front of it. I see us laughing and playing and growing up together. I see the waves of love and security that radiated out of that house.

Nothing could hurt us there.

I think that's why I wish I could rush down to Louisiana tonight and carry her in my arms back to 1976 or so, so that she could feel that love that I'm feeling in my heart and so that she could know that nothing can hurt her in that place.

Page 2 of 2 - God, I know none of this really makes any sense. I should probably just delete all of this and beg forgiveness and not write anything this week, but the words and the tears are things I think I needed to have happen so that I can truly know that this is all real.

That my aunt Gertrude will not always be there to misspell my name on my birthday cakes as Micky instead of Mikey‚ or that she won't be there to make us laugh until our sides hurt as she cranked up the radio in her kitchen and started dancing righteously to some zydeco with a look of sheer joy in her face.

I love you aunt Gert. I will probably never get the chance to show you these words but that's okay. I am saying them out loud as I write them so that they can dance on the wind like dozens and dozens of kisses blown in your direction.